So I moved to Portugal and it isn't as easy finding the correct chemicals as it was before... I found Caustic Soda 98% and I bought it. Would this work fine?


If needed and if there are any Portuguese people here I could type down what it says on the bottle.

Try ebay to find pure 100% LYE I am sure there will be one. Try ebay.co.uk and have it send overe there.

You should only use pure NaOH

I found this one delivery is £9.40 to Portugal. its not cheap though.

That one is 99%, would that be fine then? That's just 1% difference and still not completely pure?

Yes It is fine, I used that one also. I have never seen label stating 100% NaOH. There may be some traces of water so therefore the seller can not put 100% on label I guess. In the Item description you can see Sodium Hydroxide(Caustic soda) Molecular formula-NaOH 1kg and nothing else.

The same is with for example IPA you never get 100% the best is 99% and anyway 99% is better then 98%

But if you want to be sure wait for more responses, some more experienced members will come forward and correct me if I am wrong I am sure of that.

See like hereit says SODIUM HYDROXIDE (CAUSTIC SODA)MINIMUM 99% SODIUM , you never get 100% but I think this is the best you can get. But this guy does not send to Portugal I used it only as a example

Alright.

I'm pretty sure (not 100% though since I don't speak portuguese fluently) that it says nothing more than naoh on the bottle I got. Although it does state that it is 98% and not 99%.

I do not like that is says 98%. I would not use it. Its up to you , your decision mate. YOU WERE WARNED!

look at this 98% NaOH contains 1% sodium carbonate and you do not want to inhale that my friend its NOT GOOD

Seriously this stuff needs to be pure NaOH or you will be in for a trouble. If any impurity gets to final product you will be inhaling it remember that.

I speak portuguese, feel free to write what it says. What is the brand ? Did you look up further info (like MSDS or something) about this particular brand on the internet?

98% can be fine, or it can be bad.. depends what the 2% are? If its sodium carbonate that would be perfectly fine. If its lead or other heavy metals, it wouldnt.. My guess is it will be fine but better research before, for your safety.

What is it's intended use? Please write what it says on th label.

Did you try look in supermarket's cleaning aisle? In spain they sell foodgrade sodium hydroxide in supermarkets.

I will write it down as soon as I get home.

I found it in some kind of a hardware store.. They got a little bit of everything except provisions. In the supermarket's I found nothing at all.

But as I said, I'll type it down in 4 hours or so and I'd appreciate your help with the Portuguese very much.

Alright so here we go... On the front it say:

Soda cáustica, 1kg, crescendo a seu lado... tempa de seguranca para criancas (i guess keep away from children)

Ok alot of text on the back but here it comes:

Descricao do produto:
Apresenta-se em micro-perolas de cor branca e é soluvel na agua.

Utilizacoes:
Tem como funcao mais usual. o desentupimento de todo o tipo de canos. Contudo tem tambem grande utilidade em varias industrias como a quimica a do papel a textil a do sabao e detergentes entre outras.

Aplicacoes:
no desentupimento de canos a primeira medida a tomar +e verificar se a entrada do cano esta bem limpa, de modo a facilitar a entrada da soda caustica. De seguida despeje agua a escaldar no orificio a desentupir para evitar que este produto se agarre as paredes do cano. No passo seguinte coloque para entro do cano cerca de 50gr, a 150gr (aporx.) de soda caustica, dependendo da largura e do grau de entupimento do cano. Por fim deite com cuidado para nao salpicar bastante agua a escaldar. Se mesmo assim nao conseguiu obter o resultado pretendido repita novamente este processo.

Atencao:
Nunca utilize agua fria para efectuar o processo

como abrir a embalagem:
Pressione a tampa girando-a no sentido da seta que se encontra no topo da tampa.

Precaucoes:
R 35 - provoca queimaduras graves
R 36/38 - irritante para os olhos e pele
S 2 - manter fora do alacance das criancas
S 25 - evitar contacto com os olhos
S 26 - em caso de contacto com os olhos, lavar imediatamente e abundantemente com agua e consultar um especialista
S 35 - nao se desfazer deste produto e do seu recipiente sem tomar as orecaucoes de seguranca devidas
S 37/39 - usar luvas e equipamento de proteccao para os olhos/face adequados

Contem hidroxido de sodio a 98/98%
Nr C E 215-185-5 Rotulagem CE



I know what alot of this means but I wrote it all down. Hope you can help me out!

I know from this thread it should be ok to smoke a bit of SC.

But here I have read that sodium carbonate inhaled is harmful I wouldn't want to smoke it my self.

Dont worry that is misinterpretation/exageration. I mean, first of all, you shouldnt have any sodium carbonate migrate to your non-polar at all! It will definitely not dissolve in your solvent, just like lye wont, they are way too polar. Secondly, even if it did come across through bad manual separation, a simple wash would easily eliminate it. Didnt you notice that sodium carbonate is used for washing any possible lye traces from solvents?

Any possible trace of sodium carb would be insignificant after washing.

Also, sodium carbonate does not vaporize at lighter temperatures. At most it might come suspended in unvaporized particle, but the quantity should be insignificant anyways (same with lye, which would be even worse, so I fail to see why you think sodium carbonate would be bad in a way that lye wouldnt?). Smoke it in a water bong or wash your solvent before retrieving your crystals (and be careful with separation of layers) and there is no danger at all.

Illerrre, there isn't any real information regarding what it contains in what you wrote. You also didnt write the brandname... In any case I ran a search on this phrase "crescendo a seu lado" (growing next to you), and I saw that its from LACRILAR brand, is that right? Ive sent them an email asking if they have a certificate of analysis of their product, saying I wanted to use it for conserving olives and didnt want to ingest anything toxic so I wondered what the 2% was. ill let you know when there is any answer.

I will check when I come home, but I think I wrote all the information on the bottle down.

Thank you so much for your help! Amazing how friendly and helpful people can be. Just got to find the right communities. Guess I need to spend more time around here!

[quote=endlessness Didnt you notice that sodium carbonate is used for washing any possible lye traces from solvents? [/quote]

Sure you are right about this, it make sense. Thanks for the info

Lacrilar was indeed the brand. Again thank you!

They finally answered. Im attaching the MSDS. Its equal or more than 99% NaOH, the rest is small amounts of sodium carbonate and very small traces of salt and iron. They even list the food-additive number which corresponds to NaOH. You're good to go (obviously still be careful with caustic issues, use gloves and goggles and wash your solvent with sodium carb solution to remove lye traces)

G-g-g-greaaaaaaaat! Thank you so much!

Do I need to wash the solvent with sodium carb? Isn't a recrystallization enough to do?


Sorry if I'm asking any dumb questions or if I make no sense. I haven't received my mimosa yet and it was about a year or so ago I read about how to do the extraction so I'm a little rusty, hehe. Will of course read alot before doing the extraction, but as I said I'm waiting for the mimosa.

Well recrystallization should also eliminate lye since it would go to the bottom goo..

Check these three links, they might be of use:

https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m..._my_spice_ok_to_smoke.3F
https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...hould_I_wash_my_spice.3F
https://wiki.dmt-nexus.m...oes_one_recrystallize.3F


Good luck! Let us know how it goes!